Masaaki Suzuki

conductor

Photo Credit: Marco Borggreve

Since founding Bach Collegium Japan in 1990, Masaaki Suzuki has established himself as a leading authority on the works of Bach. He has remained their music director ever since, taking them regularly to major venues and festivals in Europe and the United States and building an outstanding reputation for the expressive refinement and truth of his performances. In addition to working with renowned period ensembles, he is invited to conduct repertoire as diverse as Britten, Fauré, Mahler, and Stravinsky, with orchestras including the Danish National Radio Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, New York Philharmonic, and San Francisco Symphony. This season he makes return visits to the Bergen Philharmonic and the Montreal and Sydney symphony orchestras.

Mr. Suzuki’s impressive discography on the BIS label—featuring all Bach’s major choral works as well as complete works for harpsichord—has brought him many critical plaudits. In 2014, he marked the triumphant conclusion of Bach Collegium Japan’s epic recording of the complete church cantatas initiated in 1995 and comprising 55 volumes. The ensemble has now embarked upon extending their repertoire with recent discs of Mozart’s Requiem and Mass in C Minor and a future release of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis.

Mr. Suzuki continues as an active organist and harpsichordist. Founder and head of the early music department at the Tokyo University of the Arts, he was also on the choral conducting faculty at the Yale School of Music where he remains affiliated as principal guest conductor of Yale Schola Cantorum.